Mar 8, 2011

I know what you are thinking, someone had a lot of time on their hands. I am inclined to agree with you there. Still though, it's fascinating to see someone take the time to install every major version of Windows starting with MS-DOS 5.0 (Because early versions of Windows required it) and continue through to Windows 7 using only the upgrade processes.

I first saw this on Facebook as it was posted by a former boss, and good friend of mine named Justin. Me being a big geek, I watched it and thought it was great! The guy performing the experiment is Andrew Tait of Andy’s Tech Experiments, and took him about 3 days to do it. Why did he do it? According to Andy:

I got the idea from a 90s computer magazine article I vaguely remember (possibly from PC Format?), which essentially did the same procedure but only from Windows 3.0 to Windows 98. Since virtual machine technology is much more mature now, and there are four additional versions of windows, I thought it would be a great time to repeat the experiment. I installed Doom 2 and Monkey Island as tester applications, as I found the installation disks for them while I was looking for Windows disks, and those were two of my favourite games from the period (and still are).

Here is the video:

Chain of Fools : Upgrading through every version of windows

From Andy’s blog, here are some FAQ’s about the experiment:

FAQWhy Didn't you Install Windows ME?Since Windows ME cannot be upgraded to 2000, I chose to install 2000 straight from 98 as it was chronologically the next release. I might do an "alternate history" version to see what going from 98 to ME to XP looks like. Did Doom 2 and Monkey Island work in Windows 7?Yes. Sorry I didn't point that out explicitly in the video. Can you do the same thing with Mac OS?I don't know enough about Mac OS to be able to say, and I would not be the best person to do that experiment as I have never been a Mac user. Where are you from?Scotland. What's that beeping noise in the background?My smoke detector - its battery is flat :)

What do you think about the experiment? Awesome? Waste of time? Let us know in the comments!